[SPOILERS] Serdoa goes to war II

[Serdoa]

T28 - without pictures but I think that is something nobody expects me to provide in big numbers anyway anymore? However, I present again what the other players did on T27:

- scooter finished Pottery (no soldier points so neither AH nor Sailing nor IW nor Archery and he misses Myst for any other tech to be open for research)
- scooter grew a pop
- Lewwyn grew a pop

As for city sizes those changes lead to:

scooter: 6/1/1
Commist: 6/3
Lewwyn: 4/1
Brian: 2/2/1

And I realized I have not told you about myself for quite some time. My cities are sizes 6/2/2. The incense-city probably will only grow another pop or two, depending on worker turns available. It certainly is a really bad city and I am not sure why I settled it tbh. Apart from getting the workboat for the clams... oh, right, that was the reason I settled it. Still, that city has no long term potential whatsoever. I probably will settle around it in a way to use as many of its tiles for other cities as possible.

On to the next city, the gold city. Thats a gem already with improved pigs and gold, growing nicely. It will get to size 3 end of next turn and a farmed grassland will be available the turn after to make sure that it can grow in 3-turn intervals till size 6. Thats pretty good I think. At least taking into account that I don't have a Granary. Though I could build one, so I should check if 1 or 2-pop whipping would be worth it.

Lastly, I have my capital. Working the RR hill, the corn, deer and a mined grassland hill. And two merchants. I will pop my GM EOT31. I am still not sure what to do with him. I either can bulb Metal Casting and get forges for my cities - but 80 hammers are quite an investment right now and I rather would invest in settlers and workers. Or I can settle him. I think I prefer that tbh, especially as that will let me keep my slider at 100% for some more time.

Apart from my already settled cities I will settle my 4th on T31. Yes, probably later then the others (I expect scooter as well as Brian for quite some time to get their 4th city and am honestly wondering why they still have only 3) but I don't care too much about that, I think the GM will make up for it. That city will get horses and fish in first ring. That means I don't need any worker investment apart from a road right now, what suits me quite fine. I will produce a workboat till EOT34 and will start working the fish T35. EOT36 I should grow. Maybe I'll produce a chariot and an axe next, while I wait for Sailing to finish, get a LH and 3-move galley and move those two down to see if Brian is defending his cap with more then a warrior

[Serdoa]

Ok, T29-T30 played, so foreign news for T28-T29:

- scooter settled his 4th city T28
- Commist settled their 3rd city T28
- Lewwyn settled his 3rd city T28
- Lewwyn finished AH (?) T28

- Lewwyn grew a pop T29
- Brian grew a pop T29

That leads to the following city sizes:

scooter: 6/1/1/1
Commist: 6/3/2
Lewwyn: 5/1/1
Brian: 3/2/1

Brian took pretty long to regrow from 2 to 3. Not sure what he did. If he was at 0 food when he whipped, he could still work Corn + Crabs for +9 food or Corn + Deer for +8. Either way you need 16 food to grow from 2 to 3, so he should have easily achieved that in 2 turns. Taking 5 turns instead is ... not quite understandable for me.

Of course everyone got also land points and as I have no clue where they settled this time so I have appointed random values which work out and don't seem to far off (for example, Commist has the Buddhist holy city for 10 turns now, so it should have expanded borders again).

Lastly, next turn, my GM will be finished. When that happens my food and mfg numbers will go up a little bit, getting two more citizens working again. Also my 4th city will be settled T31. That again will help. Especially as the city center alone accounts for 2 food and 1 hammer. And thats around 5%-7% of the no.1 values.

[Serdoa]

Wanted to do a longer report, but I am sort of tired now after correcting that graphical glitch. So, shorter version:

First, opponent analysis. I had scooter wrong for some time now regarding city sizes. I had it correct in my number analysis but by writing those numbers down in city sizes I got it wrong and simply copied the error from there without looking another time. Anyhow, as for turn 30:

scooter: 5/3/1/1
Commist: 6/3/2
Lewwyn: 5/1/1
Brian: 3/2/1/1
Serdoa: 6/3/2/1

Settling those 3 cities, all next to my cap (you'll see on the overview-screenie shortly) already made my costs go up to 9 gold per turn. That is not nearly as crippling as the maintenance in PBEM25, but it is enough that you have to start considering the next settlements. Of course with Gold + Incense (if one is working that for a longer period of time what I don't think happens) you'll have 14-16 (for FIN) commerce already. Palace + the trade routes + city centers and you are up to 20+. As I said, this map gives you the illusion that everythings fine - or that you just need to build a few cottages now - but sooner or later that won't be enough to keep up with a Rep-specialist economy imo. We'll see though.

Techs. Order is again scooter, Commist, Lewwyn, Brian, myself:

Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, Fishing, BW, Pottery
Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, Fishing, BW, Pottery, AH, Myst, Meditation
Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, Fishing, BW, Pottery, AH, Myst, Polytheism
Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, Fishing, BW, --------, AH, Myst
Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, Fishing, BW, Pottery, AH, Myst, 145/174 IW

Lewwyn and scooter are researching something since 2 respectively 3 turns. The other two both gained AH this turn (I assume). Looks good for me imo. I am also starting to get Chariots the turn after next, so if someone tries funny stuff with axes, he'll be unhappy with me I will also settle copper in some turns, probably with a whip, to make sure I can get spears as well. Though Archery would be doable very quickly of course if necessary. But nobody has produced anything else then warriors as of now anyway.

Overview-pic of my lands:



As can be seen I settled two of my three cities for the short term gain. The horse and fish city settled this turn (the road was of course finished on the horses before I settled) is not in the best spot as it invaliditates a plains hill spot with deer and fish in first and gems in second ring. But it is self-sufficient for now and does not need worker actions. I want to get farms going on the floodplains and probably will make it a commerce/specialist city. But for now it will work the horses for 4 turns to get a workboat for the fish. EOT36 it will grow to 2, EOT40 to 3. At that point I certainly will have workerturns available for it. Maybe even earlier so that it can grow to 3 a turn earlier.

Demos:



First in GNP, despite researching with IW a tech which certainly doesn't get any bonus for other civs knowing it and which also only gets 20% pre-req bonus. Fine with me.

First in MfG and Food as well. Thats exactly one city center I'm in front to the next one here, but I have worked a merchant this turn still so this numbers could be slightly higher. Still, fine for me. I won't be able to keep that up though, scooter should shortly get in front here, while I concentrate on getting a real economy going.

First in soldiers obviously is good, even if it only means that I have produced the most warriors / have the most techs.

Lastly: Last in land area. Slightly behind scooter (he is the one with 47000). We both obviously don't give much thought to border pops right now.

[Serdoa]

Ok, after that short report *looks at the last post* ... maybe not so short report last time, I'll go more into detail now. And as by the last report, that probably means exactly the opposite.

Demos EOT33 (so EOT32 for the others):



Researching a tech with one pre-req. I think that looks good so far. I still am waiting for the others to surpass me, but that hasn't happened so far. Lets see how long I can keep that up.

[Serdoa]

Ok, C&D:

I had the city sizes for Commist wrong as well. Probably when scooter grew one of his cities to 2 I changed it for Commist instead of for scooter. Anyway, new - and hopefully this time correct - city sizes:

scooter: 5/3/1/1 = 10
Commist: 6/3/2 = 11
Lewwyn: 5/2/1 = 8
Brian: 4/3/2/1 = 10
Serdoa: 6/4/2/1 = 13

Don't know why they do not grow their cities. Especially Brian seems to be whip-happy, what I would think is a good thing if he actually would pull ahead. But as of now he barely keeps up and in fact would have fallen behind in tech already - if it wasn't for scooter who is teching even WORSE then Brian.

What else? Well, if my soldier numbers are correct, then somebody (scooter) has build a Barracks last turn. I expect that I have something wrong ... no, I hope. Honestly, Barracks? With this land and nobody having build anything apart from warriors, settlers and workers? Ooooook.

And thats it already. Not much more to talk about right now. Questions?

[Serdoa]

Played T35. I'll make a picture update next turn as several things will happen, making it more interesting. For now I'll only update on C&D stuff:

City sizes:

scooter: 6/3/2/2
Commist: 6/3/2
Lewwyn: 5/2/1
Brian: 3/3/2/2
Serdoa: 6/4/2/1

I'll get my fifth shortly (2 turns I think) and will also grow a little bit more. And I will soon have my workers available for actually improving tiles. Right now they are doing... other stuff.

Apart from that growth not much happened the last two turns. scooter got Mysticism I believe and I finished Masonry this turn. No other techs were discovered world-wide.

[SevenSpirits]

You are such a tease. Based on the timeframe from when you said you'd finished IW and masonry (just a few turns / one turn) I'd guess Stonehenge? Tell us, what master plan did you decide on? And what did you do with your merchant? I want pictures, dotmaps, future tech path plans, everything!

[Serdoa]

Turn started off with



and then I looked at this picture



Not really good to see but there are 3 workers on the stone which cut the jungle last turn. 2 more are on the forest 1NE of the stone, having put in 2 turns of chopping that forest last turn. And finally in Nidaros is a 6th worker which was finished last turn. The capital itself finished a settler last turn which I intentionally delayed by one turn to get overflow into SH. I guess everyone knows what comes now. My 2 workers on the forest moved onto the stone and the 5 workers finished the quarry in one turn. The 6th worker moved onto the forest and finished the chop, leading to



Also the settler which finished in the cap moved 1N of scooters scout and will settle next turn city 5. The cap itself finished SH with a different tile configuration then in the picture above for more overflow, allowing for a 2-turn settler. Uppsala finished its worker and Hai... the city in the SW... grew to size 2. All in all a good turn for my civ

Demos of EOT:



Still looking good. I could be leading in food as well had I not configured the capital for max overflow.

[Serdoa]

You are such a tease. Based on the timeframe from when you said you'd finished IW and masonry (just a few turns / one turn) I'd guess Stonehenge? Tell us, what master plan did you decide on? And what did you do with your merchant? I want pictures, dotmaps, future tech path plans, everything!

I'm sorry I have to think for myself on a dotmap. I know I should have done that already, but I am not getting around to it. I am pretty sure that my 5th city goes 1E of that southern deer, getting copper, oasis and a fish in 2nd ring. With SH now, that border pop comes soon enough that I can finally start settling such sites. Number 6 probably then goes north, 1N of the cows to be exact as that will give corn and cow in first ring and fish in 2nd ring. Maybe instead to the east for the wheat and corn spot, but I am not too sure on that.

Anyway. As for the master plan: I had played around with the idea of SH -> Oracle -> Pyramids. But Commist got PH some turns ago and should finish Oracle soon, so I decided to quit on that. I probably could still have got it as I assume he waits for his GM for a MC-bulb into Machinery, but only with several chops - and I'd rather have them go into the Pyramids. I am thinking about getting another GM, bulbing MC and getting Colossus though. I'd need 134 GPP and have 5 right now. So, I'd need another 129 and I will get 4 GP-points from SH + 12 from 2 merchants. Thats 16 GPP / turn. So 9 turns because with 8 I am short 1 GPP I'll finish Writing soon, so I probably can get down to 7 or 8 turns for it with a higher chance to get a GS or GP instead of a GM. Oh... and stunting my growth in the process as well. So probably not. I am however probably going to get another GP soon and see what can be done then. Because that all depends much on Commists timings. If he is not going for Oracle or not going for the MC-bulb then obviously I have time (no one else has PH yet). But if he is going for MC, then I am probably not going to be fast enough for Colossus. Well... would be nice to have that, but I'd rather have him get it then Lewwyn or scooter.

Anyhow, as I started to explain, plan was SH -> Oracle -> Pyramids. Oracle was scratched and SH built this turn so that leaves Pyramids in my master plan still. I am going to finish them soonish. No on has IW as of now so I think I can be a little bit relaxed about it (no one will build Pyramids without stone). After that, I am not sure how to proceed. Depends what the others do. I want to get Construction relatively early, just to be able to field catapults. But I probably will get Sailing first because - as you can see from the overview shot in the last post - I have a port city and a galley with an axe (I settle copper next turn, remember) and a chariot could be rather unpleasant for people who whip their capital down to 2 pop all the time

Lastly: As for the GM I have already born, I settled him. I really pondered long about bulbing MC or CoL (getting Writing but not Pottery would have sufficed for that) but ultimately I came to the conclusion that 1 food and 7.5 gold is better in the long run. Especially as with Pyramids that will be 1f/7.5 gold/3.75 beakers

[Ceiliazul]

:kisskiss: <-- All the stone age astrology chicks fall in love with your rock stacking skills!